LOS ANGELES — Christoph Meili was living as an average guy when he did an extraordinary thing for the Jewish community and suddenly found himself idolized as a superhero.
But after basking in the community’s adulation, the spotlight ultimately shifted elsewhere, and he had to figure out how to build a new existence in a foreign country.
The strain of this process led to the splitting up of his family, but it also opened up new opportunities for the 33-year-old Meili.
The story begins five years ago, when Meili was working as a night watchman at the Union Bank of Switzerland in Zurich.
While making his rounds in January 1997, he discovered ledgers and documents destined for the shredder. He took a closer look and discovered extensive financial records on bank accounts and other assets belonging to Holocaust victims, which the bank had withheld from survivors and heirs.
Meili made an irrevocable decision that night: He took some of the incriminating bank records and turned them over to a Jewish organization in Zurich. When the deed became public, Meili was fired by the bank.
In May 1997, Meili testified at a hearing of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee. Shortly after, he started receiving hate mail and death threats, and he was denounced in much of the Swiss media.
In July of that year, President Clinton signed into law a bill unanimously adopted by Congress granting permanent U.S. residency status to Meili, his wife, Giuseppina, and their two small children.The family soon arrived in New York, and Meili embarked on a new and strange double life.
Jewish organizations heaped praises on him. He was lauded as a moral giant and Righteous Gentile, a simple man who confronted avaricious Swiss banks.
He got a job as a security guard at a Manhattan highrise and rented a small apartment in New Jersey, but his salary was barely enough to make ends meet.
His life took a turn for the better following a 1998 visit to California, where he addressed a Whittier Law School conference in Orange County.
Among the listeners was William Elperin, an attorney, son of Holocaust survivors, and president of the 1939 Club, an organization of mainly survivors and their families.
Elperin arranged for a tuition-free scholarship for Meili at the Orange County-based Chapman University. Elperin also arranged for a $5,000 monthly stipend for the Meili family from the 1939 Club, as long as Christoph Meili remained in college.
As the Meilis tried to build a new life in California, they were under constant scrutiny by the Swiss media. which hit pay dirt at the end of last year. They reported that Meili had threatened to kill himself, had separated from his wife, spent several nights in jail, was flat broke and living in a hostel.
The reports, unfortunately, were pretty much on the mark. Giuseppina Meili confirmed in an interview that during one violent argument, her husband threatened to kill her, the two children and then himself.
She called police, who took Meili away and held him in jail. Giuseppina Meili bailed him out after two days, dropping charges.
Christoph Meili acknowledges the altercation but says the supposed threats of physical harm were based on a misunderstanding.
However, he and his wife, married in 1989, have since separated. He now lives in a rented room in a private home. His wife has filed for divorce.
During a recent phone interview, Meili said he was unhappy about the separation, a situation compounded by a lack of friends and a breakup with a new girlfriend.
But he is trying to get on with his life: He is now in his third year in college majoring in speech and communication, and he says he hopes to become a human rights lawyer.
Giuseppina Meili is also getting along, working occasionally as a gardener and waitress. Her children, Miriam, 9, and David, 7, go to public schools.
She tries to understand what happened to her husband. “He gets frustrated and moody when he doesn’t get any attention,” she says. “Sometimes he is close to depression.”
Christoph Meili says that much of his resentment is directed against what he perceives as promises of financial compensations that have never materialized. He points to a 1998 agreement in which Swiss banks agreed to pay $1.25 billion to settle all Holocaust-era claims. As part of this settlement, says Meili, $1 million was to go to him, the money to come out of fees paid to American lawyers in the case. So far the money, though transferred by the Swiss, has been tied up in lengthy legal proceedings.
Edward Fagan, a leading lawyer in the class-action lawsuit against the Swiss banks, confirmed the special arrangement with Meili.
Meili also feels that some major Jewish organizations raised considerable money by featuring him as a speaker but failed to share the proceeds with him.
While the $5,000 monthly stipend might sound adequate, in expensive Orange County it’s barely enough, says Meili, adding that $4,000 of the stipend goes to his family.